Concepts to cover:
1. Showing studies which may disprove or put into light fallacies in belief systems is often met with irritation and hostility, why is this?
Theories:
a. Resentment at being told a belief is wrong, an injury to ego
b. Resentment at having a comforting belief "ruined" or "taken" unbidden, a feeling of loss followed by a feeling of anger which manifests as annoyance.
c. Fear that other beliefs may also be lost, a reaction meant to preserve current belief system and ego.

2. As a result, instead of facing the issue at hand with new information the studies (and indirectly all studies) are claimed to be "false" "faulty" or "meaningless" in order to dismiss what the studies show more easily.

3. Reasons (often personal and rarely addressing the issue) are given to justify continued belief in whatever the study may throw into question and completely ignore contradictory evidence presented.

Example follows:

Skeptic mentions how researchers at the Australian National University and the University of Helsinki concluded that, for most people, the benefits of taking vitamin C daily were so slight that they were not worth the effort or expense (only about 8% of adults found a reduced duration of their cold).

Emergen "C" user remarks that studies can be found showing the opposite result, (so the negative study must not be something to take seriously )

Skeptic remarks that new tests are being completed all the time, and that it is the quality of the study which should be taken into consideration, as well as where those studies are published which give a hint as to their quality (one can most definitely find "studies" published in theology-based journals which show that the Earth is only 6,000+ years old).

Emergen "C" user drops the argument and says that if it makes someone (her) feel better then there's no reason to stop taking it.

Skeptic warns that such a response to all sorts of beliefs can lead to disastrous results, especially in situations where a person may forgo medical treatment in favor of unproven or even disproved "alternatives"

Awkward and uncomfortable silence ensues.

and now for the "Quote of the Whenever I Feel Like It":

"Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf." - Albert Schweitzer

Sometimes skeptical people such as myself are accused of being "close-minded". A quick search on dictionary.com defines the term "close-minded" as "Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas." On the surface, I can see how a skeptical person might appear that way to a believer. For example, if a person who believes in ghosts talks to a skeptic about it, they may find their belief a bit dampened by the lack of acceptance a skeptic may have, or even worse they may be insulted by the pronouncement by a skeptic that there is no credible evidence for such a belief. Now, time and again not accepting the belief of another person is claimed to be "close-minded" when in actuality it is often just common sense. If a person says to you "cutting off your limbs will give you super powers!" and then provides no compelling evidence, it's unlikely you'd be first in line with the chain-saw. That's not close-minded, it's just sensible.

On the other hand, people who hold fantastic beliefs often have a difficult time proving themselves to be at all open-minded. For example, that same person who professes a belief in ghosts when asked "what sort of evidence might convince you that you made an error, and that there actually isn't enough good evidence to suggest ghosts exist?" will often say "none, there is nothing you could show me or say to me that would shake my belief in ghosts." Is this open-minded or close-minded? Seems "stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas" to me, does it not? On the other hand, a skeptic will almost always readily provide a substantive list of conditions which would change their mind about the plausibility of ghosts. By coming up with such a list we challenge the reasons for accepting or rejecting a claim, something "true believers" often feel uncomfortable (and thus avoid) doing.

And yet it is the skeptic who is labeled the "close-minded" spoil-sport. Religious folks (and other believers of questionable things) ask skeptics to be "open-minded" but what I think they really mean is "lower your standards of evidence". Stop asking all those hard questions or pointing out all those logical fallacies. It's ruining the fun! Be "open-minded" and stop using all that logic and science to refute our claims or point out errors! Imagine how irritating it is to, after carefully explaining what sort of evidence would change your mind, be called "close-minded" because you don't support someone's views on a particular subject. Being skeptical means taking all the options into consideration, including the possibility that it may be true! A good skeptic will of course grant this possibility under certain conditions and that's where the stick point seems to be. Believers who have already some sort of investment in the belief (be it financial, emotional or what have you) seem to feel that the skeptic's hesitancy is born out of some rigid outright denial of anything new or unusual. This could not be further from the truth! Skeptics love a good mystery! The fact is there is so much unsubstantiated b.s. out there that no skeptic in their right mind would approach them all on a "accept first question later" basis. It's just not practical.

Still people take these things personally and get all flustered when I point out this or that fails the standard of evidence. (And please realize that I don't do this every time anyone talks about such things, only when it seems appropriate to do so) Then I'm "close-minded!" and am somehow disrespecting them and hurting them deeply. I am criticized for pointing out what I feel to be legitimate errors in a theory but and simultaneously expected to allow myself to be subjected to every crack-pot theory and treat it with some sort of presumably deserved respect.

Why is it that every belief seems to assume there's some sort of automatic "anti-criticism" blanket over it? Just because you believe it (or a lot of someones believe it) somehow that makes it taboo to question or point out errors? If I met a person who believed that branding their child or nearly drowning them would help them be a better person, I would not only criticize them I would call the police! If someone told me they thought that committing suicide would get them to a martyr's heaven you're damn right I would take issue with that too. How is being a Christian Scientist or Jehovah's Witness any different? Belief unsubstantiated by reason does not have immunity from scrutiny or doubt. That's not close-minded, in my opinion it's simply having a higher standard.

-Cailin

I had an interesting conversation with a couple people at a birthday party. I'm not sure how but the topic of spiritualism came up and with it the pseudo-scientific studies of Mr. Emoto's studies on water crystals and the power of thought and spirits and all that, and like the trouble causer I am I had to pipe up that Emoto's studies were seriously scientifically flawed and did not really prove anything about the "power" of love and all that. One woman mentioned how she believed that some thing just couldn't be explained any other way other than the spiritual way such as her mentioning the day before an event that her dead friend would make "an appearance" at a wedding. Then there was a particularly awkward toast at the wedding which mentioned the dead friend and the woman said this was definitely her dead friend causing a disturbance. I mentioned that a lack of explanation did not justify a jump to a paranormal explanation to which she replied that there were many other events in her life which had "no explanation". She didn't seem to understand what I was saying but I decided not to push it. People get weird when you challenge their beliefs, especially when they're strongly emotional beliefs.

Anyway, the conversation continued with the other woman and I asked her if she considered herself a Deist. After some thought and conversation she concluded that she wasn't, because Deism did not have enough of a spiritual impact on her life. She described something much closer to Jung's theory of collective consciousness which seemed much more ambiguously spiritual than Deism, which is a little different to me. She said that basically Nature was God, which I have heard before but never really understood. It was to me like saying God is Love or Earth or Essence, not very specific and in the end it doesn't help describe god or clarify what he/she/it is. I decided to ask her exactly what she meant by "spirit" and "soul", a couple words she had mentioned several times, and the best I could get from her was that it meant that "what we did mattered" and briefly she mentioned quantum theory but admitted she didn't know much about it (I think she's seen What the Bleep Do We Know). She couldn't be any more specific about what those words meant to her, other than she "knew" that they existed. She mentioned to me how a friend of hers had debated with her regarding the existence of the spirit, where her friend insisted that logically and scientifically there was no such thing. The conversation had upset her and made her feel very emotional, and she was glad that our conversation (though I did not agree with her) was not that way.

Overall the feeling I got from both women was that science tried to make everything black and white, and in trying to explain everything "scientifically" it limited itself and missed out on some kind of "greater" truth. I wish I could show them how science makes life more beautiful, but I suppose some folks would rather have pseudo-science and supernatural explanations than understanding the natural and beautiful complexity of reality that science offers.

I think Dawkins puts it best when he says:

"The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realize that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here."

I think that is something we can all agree on no matter what we believe.

-Cailin